Earlier this year, we expanded our fleet of equipment and acquired our second pouch machine: a Hudson Sharp Ares 400-SUP. One of the things we mentioned in our announcement post was that we were working toward the ability to run recycle-ready PE. Well, a few months later, and after rigorous testing, we are happy to say we are now able to produce recyclable pouches!

One of the main struggles with creating a recycling-ready pouch was creating a functioning pouch that still holds high barrier properties. This was extremely important to us as barrier properties are imperative to properly protecting the contents of your packaging and extending their shelf life. Our recyclable films have excellent MVTR (moisture) barriers and options with excellent OTR (oxygen barriers). However, switching from conventional pouches to recyclable may cause some changes to your barrier properties, so please reach out to our specialist for more information here. For more information on barrier properties, you can check out this blog post.

All of our recyclable films are HDPE-based (High-Density Polyethylene) and help you meet the How2Recycle guidelines. Moving from multi-layer conventional to a mono-layer HDPE pouch means more value and opportunities for MRFs (materials recovery facility) in the future.

Currently, there is no practical way to recycle conventional pouches, and they are usually landfilled or ground up for waste to energy facilities. For recyclable pouches, there is still no sufficient infrastructure or curbside collection system to handle flexible packaging in North America. This inevitably will change with mounting pressure from brands demanding packaging in line with a circular economy.

If you're interested in finding out more about our recyclable pouch options, reach out to us via our online contact form or request a quote here!